


Impromptu

by volti



Series: ShuMako Week 2019 [5]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Ring shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volti/pseuds/volti
Summary: (adj.) made, done, or formed on or as if on the spur of the moment; composed or uttered without previous preparationIn which Akira accompanies Ryuji to shop for an engagement ring for moral support, and finds something that catches his eye in the meantime.Written for ShuMako Week Day 7 -Future





	Impromptu

**Author's Note:**

> anyone else just crying in the club
> 
> again, this was written for day 7 of ShuMako Week; i was going for the **Future** prompt, but I guess to a degree it also fits **Family**. guess you'll see why~ ;u;

“Look,” Ryuji says. “All I’m saying is, it’s gotta be perfect.”

He’s been saying that for weeks. Probably been bent on this idea for much longer. Maybe years. Akira wouldn’t put it past him, honestly.

They’ve been standing on the street, staring at this sign for who knows how long, but it was Ryuji’s idea to come, so it’ll be Ryuji’s initiative to take the first step in. Maybe he’s trying not to show it, but he’s shaking like a leaf the whole time, swallowing hard and peeking in through the display windows. It’s understandable, but they don’t have all day to stand here. They have dates to get to later, and even if Ryuji’s not going to do anything about this tonight, he’s going to do it eventually. He might as well go in.

Akira gives him a clap on the shoulder, a gentle squeeze. “It will be,” he says. “But we’ll never know if we stay here.”

Ryuji takes a deep breath, heaves it out through his nose. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“On three?”

“On three.”

Akira’s been to jewelry shops before, over the years. For Christmas gifts, for anniversary presents, even as a courtesy to Sae, who at this point might as well be his sister. At twenty-one, he’s not exactly rolling in cash, but he makes a decent living keeping up Leblanc with Sojiro and sometimes Futaba. He’s got an apartment of his own, after saving up from renting the attic again for a couple of years, and a sum of money he’s been adding to over time—bonuses from Sojiro for working more days or longer hours, payment from other odd jobs, a percentage of his paychecks. But at this rate, Leblanc might as well be his.

It just might be, one day. He could even run a tighter ship of it if he decided to go back to school. And he will. He plans to. There are just other priorities at hand.

He’s been to jewelry shops before, but never one so small and fancy. And never for this reason.

Akira and Ryuji part at the doorway for a moment in case other customers want to come in, but otherwise they’re all but joined at the hip, skirting around bright lights and pristine glass cases, near-unfamiliar territory to both of them. They don’t know a thing about carats or cuts, only that those are words that exist within the confines of this store and in the words of fancy people, people with more taste. They only know what looks pretty. And Ryuji knows, and announces in the little space between them, that he’s kind of on a budget, and that Ann probably likes rose gold, _’cause she likes pink so much_.

“What is Ann up to, anyway?” Akira asks. “I feel like I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“That’s ‘cause you haven’t. She just got back yesterday from doing some overseas magazine stuff. Even saw her parents for a little bit and everything.” When an associate comes over to them to ask if they have any questions, Ryuji stiffens up and chokes out a _No, thanks_ , mechanically shakes his head and holds his breath until the associate walks away. He clutches his chest, sighs in relief. “Feel like I’m gonna break something even if I just look at it funny, shit.”

“You’re not gonna break anything,” Akira reassures him, but Ryuji has a point; he’s afraid to so much as touch the display cases, in case he smudges them. They look perfect as it is—everything here looks perfect—and for more than a moment it feels like neither of them really belongs here. Like they stick out like sore thumbs because they’re in dark jeans and Ryuji’s in a V-neck t-shirt, instead of the cocktail-type dresses and suit-and-tie combinations the other customers are sporting. “We’ll find something. I’m just… curious, I guess.”

Ryuji cocks an eyebrow, shakes his head at the jewelry in front of him, and moves on to another case. “Curious ‘bout what?”

“Why now?” Akira doesn’t mean for it to sound judgmental; judging is the last thing he would ever do to Ryuji. But all the time he spends with Makoto has turned him toward the logical side of things, the thoughtful side of things, even in their own conversations. “You’ve got plenty of time, and won’t it be hard to plan around her schedule?”

“Well, yeah. Ain’t that exactly why we should? Gives us more time to actually plan stuff. Make it perfect and all that.” Ryuji shrugs; it’s becoming more and more evident that he’s been thinking about this for more than just a day. Which is how long he tends to think about most enterprises, even the big ones. So he must be serious. “Look, before she left, we just… talked. A lot. It’s not like I’m not used to her comin’ and goin’ by now. She’s livin’ her dream, so why wouldn’t I be happy for her? And just… we’ve known each other for so long, and yeah, we’ve been on and off sometimes, figurin’ shit out, but… but…”

He takes a moment to gather himself, even peeks around the store to make sure no one else is listening. “I dunno,” he finally admits. “Sometimes you just look at somebody, spend time with somebody, and you know. That they’re gonna mean something to you. That they’re gonna stay with you for the rest of your life. Maybe it didn’t always feel that way, not _hardcore_ , but it was still there. The whole time, it was still there. _She’s gonna mean somethin’ to you. She’s gonna stay with you for the rest of your life and you’re gonna want it._ ”

Akira blinks a couple of times; the words sound almost too poetic. Almost too rehearsed. “Wait,” he says. “Did you already ask her?”

Awkwardly, and with a faint blush, Ryuji rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. On accident.”

“ _How the hell do you propose to a girl ‘on accident?’_ ”

“Look, it just _happened_ , okay? Now are you gonna help me find her a ring or not?”

Akira sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. At this point, he’s not sure whether he adopted the habit from Makoto, or from her sister. He’s spent enough time with both of them that by now he might as well be family. “You know I will. Just. To be honest, I figured you would’ve asked Yusuke for this kind of help. He’s better with aesthetics than I am.”

Ryuji’s expression sours, just a little. “Got a feeling that wouldn’t exactly go well.”

“Why not? His appreciation for Ann is part of the whole reason we know him.”

“Keep talkin’ and I’m throwin’ out his wedding invite.”

Akira gives him a nudge, and drifts to another case. “I don’t think Haru would appreciate that very much.”

Ryuji scowls.

The truth is, from a distance and while they were speaking, Akira caught sight of a cluster of rubies and gold. They’re not his birthstone, or Makoto’s—actually, funny enough they’re Ryuji’s—but he found them mesmerizing all the same, sparkling under all that light. Quietly, he studies each piece in front of him. Drop earrings, a gaudy-looking necklace, a bracelet he knows he can’t afford.

Then he sees the ring, and he stops.

Objectively, it’s nothing special. The ruby is a circular cut, a brilliant red that reminds him of both of them, with the usual sort of claws any simple ring might have. It’s surrounded by a fine braid of gold, with a simple diamond-studded band to accentuate the whole piece. And it’s in his budget. It’s worth it. It’s perfect.

Ryuji is too focused on the display in front of him and probably too overwhelmed with pink and white, which gives Akira enough time to snap a picture of the ring on his phone and open his thread of text messages with Sae: _Look what I found. Thoughts?_

The two minutes between his message and her reply is agonizing, and he shouldn’t be trembling as much as he is, not when the whole reason he’s here is to give moral support to Ryuji, not to himself. But he checks the screen almost as soon as the phone buzzes in his hand.

_What did I tell you last year, Akira?_

He sighs. _I know what you told me._

He knows what she told him.

———

A year ago, Akira treated Sae to lunch. Stopped by her office downtown and everything, and let her pick the place. Admittedly, she picked a middle-of-the-road sort of restaurant, and Akira wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted or like she had paid him some sort of courtesy in return. Maybe it was because she knew all the merits and hardships of working too hard to make not enough. She’d known that for a long time. After all these years, he knew she had.

They’d only just ordered their drinks when Sae closed her menu, folded her hands on top of it, and said, “You intend to marry her, don’t you.”

Akira never really grew out of the habit of picking his nails, only put it on hold from time to time, but in that moment he started up again. It was the only thing he could do to fight off the tightness in his chest and keep himself from freezing. He should have expected this of a former public prosecutor, and all the same, he was floored.

Sae hardly gave him time to answer. “I spent long enough interrogating you when you were a teenager, Kurusu. I know when you’re lying. And more important, I know when you’re hiding something.”

The more time he spent sitting there and not speaking, the more time he spent considering that there were probably a whole host of telltale signs, from the moment they took a seat; hell, she might have known from the moment he invited her out. He cleared his throat, and tried speaking again “I… I know Makoto has her own autonomy, and the decision is in her hands at the end, whenever I do ask her. And I’d like to ask her. It just didn’t feel right, not asking you.” He took a deep breath, tried to study her expression. Trying was the operative word there; Sae always prided herself on being near-unreadable. Probably a skill she’d picked up in the workforce. Or from her own family. “Last time I visited, when I paid respects to your parents, I asked them, too. it’s just…”

The waiter came by with their drinks then, and they placed their order without a hitch. Akira thought it was a miracle he could manage it at all. 

Sae looked to him again. “You were saying?”

Right. He was saying. “It’s just… she values them so much. And she values you so much. I don’t think I could sleep at night if I didn’t tell you first.” It was the honest truth. He’d lost count of the nights they’d stayed up too late, talking about functional families and what it meant to be a parent, to have a parents, to have one another. But he remembered the one time, moments before Makoto drifted off to sleep beside him in the comfort of her dorm, when she told him, _I’d like to have a family one day. I have so much love and so many thoughts in me, and I want to give it to them. I want to give them what I didn’t always get to have._ It broke his heart a little to hear, in the moment, but he’d turned out the light and held her close and whispered into her hair, _I’ll give that to you. One day, I’ll give that to you._

Sae tapped a dark purple nail against the tabletop, snapping him back to attention. If he squinted, he could find a smile in her expression, somewhere. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you know her as well as you do. Three or four years teaches you a lot about someone.” She folded her hands again, crossed her legs under the table without apology. “It’s also quite some time,” she said more pointedly, “to make something of yourself.”

He probably should have expected this, too. The scrutiny. Makoto had always mentioned Sae having high expectations for men. Their punctuality, their table manners, their speech, everything. Defeating a false god and saving human cognition could only put him in so many of Sae’s good graces, and at the end of the day, it certainly didn’t pay all the bills, either.

Sae was staring at him like she expected him to explain, so he didn’t make her wait. “I know I’m still working at Leblanc. I know I’m still feeling out my own place. The thing for me is… it’s…” He stopped. Started again. “This has been Makoto’s dream for such a long time. Becoming a police commissioner, I mean. Of course schooling is important to me too, but not if… not if i’m pulling away the time and the funds she needs.” This time, he was the one to fold his hands, tight, tight. “I don’t want to go about this in a way that takes her away from everything she wants and everything she’s fought for. I just want to do the things it takes to support her. I’ll get to my things in my time. I just want her to have the chance to come first.”

“And yet,” Sae countered, “You think marriage is a good idea right now.”

“I don’t,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly. “I just know it’s what I want one day. This, my asking you, it’s… it’s preemptive, I guess. For whenever it does happen. So we have something to plan for, when the future’s more certain. When she _is_ an officer, and I _do_ have something better going for myself, and…” He trailed off. The last thing he wanted to do was make an argument of it all, no matter how much they had a penchant for arguing, even for fun. “I love her,” he finally said. “The kind that just doesn’t go away. The kind I want to be a better person for. I’ve known that for a long time. I’m sure about her. And I know she’s sure about me. I wouldn’t have asked you all this if I didn’t feel that as strongly as I do.”

For a long time, Sae didn’t speak. Even when their food was served, she took up her chopsticks without a word and chewed in silence. And for that long time, Akira was terrified that he must have messed something up. That this was, somehow, some form of insubordination. That he’d ruined everything just by speaking. At the very least, he waited for her to begin eating before he took up his own plate, carrying himself with every caution and noting everything he did from across the table. Maybe that could serve as apology, somehow. Maybe that would be proof.

The moment ended, and Sae dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “Well,” she said. “If you are as sure about each other as you say you are, then you’re no doubt acquainted with the sort of patience love requires.”

“We are,” Akira murmured, not meaning to interrupt her. A month and a half in juvenile hall. A year back in his hometown. Love had been nothing but patient with him, and he’d at least tried to pay it the same courtesy.

“If that’s the case,” Sae said, “Then I’d prefer that you wait until she graduates to propose. take as many preemptive measures as you like, but the question waits.”

Something in him wanted to protest. Wanted to ask, if the question will be the same either way, and if the answer might be the same, then why wait? But that something in him died down when he met her eyes.

Sae… had a point. Makoto had worked far too hard to get into law school, had pushed herself through too many exams and sleepless nights and soaked her Buchimaru plush with far too many tears for him to distract her with a ring. And perhaps the answer wouldn’t be the same after all. Not when she was twenty-one and still had years upon years ahead of her. Not when she had only secured reputations instead of salaries.

He took a deep breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

———

“Can I run a novel concept by you?” Akira’s been staring at this ring for far too long, and part of him is afraid that Ryuji’s panicked himself into a catatonic state. And maybe Ryuji’s afraid of the same for him.

He’s alive, though, even as he shivers to attention. “Hit me.”

“Ann loves you,” Akira says. “She’ll love whatever you pick out for her, because you bought it. Because you thought of her. You just have to trust your gut. And trust how you feel about her, and how she feels about it.” He shrugs, turning his head this way and that, just to watch the way that ruby catches the light. Just like Makoto’s eyes. “If you’re that worried about it, you could always text her a few examples, see what kind she likes best.”

“Uh, hello? _Mr. Obama?_ ” Ryuji makes a show of knocking his knuckles against his temple. “Kinda ruins the surprise there.”

“What surprise? You already asked her, and she already said yes.” Akira knocks his temple right back.

Ryuji sucks his teeth and groans, too melodramatic, and he drops his face into his hands.

He’s still floating around the store, overly scrutinizing every piece of jewelry he can get his eyes on, when Akira finally texts Sae back: _Preemptive measures. Remember?_

_I remember full well, Akira._

_So what do you think?_

To be honest, waiting for Sae’s opinion is infinitely more nerve-racking than the proposal itself, no matter how hypothetical or unpredictable it seems right now. He taps his toes on the carpeted floor, tries and fails to soothe himself with the soft, easygoing piano music over the speakers. When his phone finally buzzes again, he nearly drops it trying to read it. Which would have been a disaster. But it isn’t a disaster. Certainly not with Sae’s reply.

_Function over form. You do know her well._

_Think it’s the one?_

_As much as I appreciate how highly you value my opinion, I believe that’s a question for you to answer,_ Sae says. _Not me._

She doesn’t reply after that.

The associate from earlier comes back, makes herself known with a quiet _ahem._ “You’ve been looking at that piece for a while now, sir,” she observes. “Are you interested in purchasing it?”

Akira blinks up at her, moony face, well-meaning smile. He’s still holding his phone with a death grip, and he runs his fingers through his hair just to give his free hand something to do. Slowly, he nods, stealing one last glance at the ruby as it winks at him. “Yes, I think so,” he says, soft and so final that it almost scares him.

The associate’s eyes sparkle, and while Ryuji is asking question after question about metal and cuts and stones, she gets to work telling him about payment plans and all the specifics of the ring itself, unlocking the case and finding a box to home the jewelry. He smiles throughout the whole thing, fishes out his wallet with one hand and speed dials Makoto with the other.

It takes her a couple of rings to answer. “Hey,” she says, casual but loving. The way she’s learned to speak with him. She sounds a little busy, but the fact that she makes time to answer him is heartwarming enough. “I was hoping you’d call. What were you thinking of doing tonight? Another night in?”

“Up to you,” Akira says. He almost always leaves date logistics in her court, since her schedule and her priorities need the most workaround. “I’ll pick you up at the usual time.”

Makoto hums. “Sounds like a plan.”

His stomach lurches. “Love?”

“Mmhmm?”

“I had a quick question.”

“Oh, yeah?” There’s a soft smile in Makoto’s voice. “What’s that?”

“Remind me of your commencement date again?”

“March twenty-third,” she says, lightning-fast. She’s had the date memorized since the beginning of the school year. “In a couple of months. Why do you ask?”

“Just thinking.” The associate returns with a small paper bag and the box, small navy blue velvet, and Akira holds his hand to his heart in silent thanks before handing her his card. From across the store, Ryuji looks up, presumably to point out whatever miracle ring he’s finally found. His mouth falls open, and he holds both of his hands to his head, frantically mouthing, _FOR REAL?!_

Akira will have a lot of explaining to do, but that will come at the end. Instead, he smiles into the receiver and says, “Let’s do something special afterward.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Twitter](www.twitter.com/omnistruck) and a [Tumblr](http://voltisubito.tumblr.com) where you can follow me! As always, thank you so so so much for reading. Kudos and comments are always appreciated <3!!!


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